The fourth quarter was one of the best in recent history, with property deals in Romania at €342 million, compared to €40 million in the same period of last year, according to real estate consultancy Colliers. The overall investment transactions volumes edged close to €900 million, which is roughly similar to the result of 2020.
In the last three months of 2021, the retail sector was dominant in terms of transactions, with a share of 48% in the total volume of investments, followed by industrial and logistics spaces (29%) and offices (17%).
Cora's sale of its six properties in Romania, consisting of hypermarkets with shopping gallery and parking with a total area of 135,000 sqm, to the Austrian investor Supernova marked the largest retail transaction in CEE during 2021, according to Colliers representatives.
According to Colliers, investors’ interest in retail products has been growing steadily over the last half year, focusing on various product categories such as retail parks or shopping arcades, shopping centers in secondary tertiary cities in need of repositioning or boxes leased to supermarkets or DIY.
“The volume, while good, fails to show the true extent of demand as the investors’ interest responds to a limited supply of products. This applies to all major real estate sectors: office, retail and industrial. Because of the blocked authorization process, there is a lot of uncertainty about the delivery of new products, context in which we see an increased interest in existing, centrally located assets, which as a result of an investment can be converted into residential, hotel or brought to a current standard of offices. We also see a demand for specialized product types, where the final investors are the beneficiaries of the rented space," said Anca Merdescu, Associate Director for Investments Services at Colliers.
The yield environment has recorded a compression in the past year. For assets in the industrial & logistics sector, yields on prime properties fell over the past year by about 0.5 percentage points to 7.5%. On the office side, yields on prime assets fell from 7% in the third quarter of 2021 to 6.5% at the end of the year.
